Following a flurry of senior management hires across Asia and Europe Julius Baer concluded yesterdays business by announcing a new Investment Management division and a significant industry hire.

The Zurich based bank will create a new division ‘Investment Management’ which will be headed by the renowned investment expert Yves Henri Bonzon who will become a member of the Executive Board as of 1 February 2016. It aimes to further emphasize its commitment to clients’ investment performance, according to a statement by Julius Baer.

Co-Leadership with Burkhard Varnholt

He will report to CEO Boris Collardi. The new IM division will complement the existing Investment Solutions Group (ISG) headed by Burkhard Varnholt. He and Yves Bonzon will be Co-CIOs.

Bonzon is one of the leading investment management professionals in the private banking industry. After a traineeship in wealth management and corporate banking at UBS, he joined Pictet in Geneva in 1989.

Surprising Departure

There he became an equity partner, Group Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of the Wealth Management division responsible for more than 100 investment professionals.

Since 1998 he had chaired Pictet’s investment committee. Yves Bonzon left Pictet in December 2015. He then surprised market watchers when it was announced in the summer of 2015 that he would be joining Lugano based BSI.

Problems of the Parent Company

It is now becoming clear that BSI Bank, due to the problems of its parent company, the Brazilian Pactual BTG Group, finds itself in a testing position and is certainly about to be sold as finews.ch in recent weeks variously reported.

Bonzon has a master's degree in business administration from the University of Lausanne.